“I am for Going Forward” Ita Wegman’s Birthday

Under the feet of Orion, & to the right of Sirius, hides Lepus the Hare. As with Canis Major, you can connect Lepus’s dots to make it look like what it’s supposed to be – a crouching bunny, with his nose pointing lower right, his faint ears extending up toward Rigel, & his body bunched to the left. His brightest two stars, Beta & Alpha Leporis, form the front & back of his neck.

1732 – Birthday of George Washington, American general & politician, 1st President of the United States

1788 – Birthday of Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher & author

1876 – Birthday of Ita Wegman, founder of Anthroposophical medicine & close collaborator of Rudolf Steiner. She also developed a special form of massage therapy, called rhythmical massage, & other therapeutic treatments.

Ita Wegman, as she was known throughout her life, was born as Maria Ita Wegman in Indonesia, the first child of a Dutch colonial family. Around the turn of the century, she returned to Europe (she had visited before) & studied therapeutic gymnastics & massage. In 1902, when she was 26, she met Rudolf Steiner for the first time. Five years later she began medical school at the University of Zurich, where women were not discriminated to study medicine. She was granted a diploma as a medical doctor in 1911 with a specialization in women’s medicine & joined an existing medical practice.

In 1917, having opened an independent practice, she developed a cancer treatment using an extract of mistletoe following indications from Steiner. This first remedy, which she called Iscar, was later developed into Iscador & has become an approved cancer treatment in Germany & a number of other countries.

By 1919 she had a joint practice together with two other doctors, also women. In 1920 she purchased land in Arlesheim, where she opened her own clinic, the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut, the first center for anthroposophical medicine. In 1922 she founded a therapeutic home for mentally handicapped children, Haus Sonnenhof, also in Arlesheim, & co-founded a pharmaceutical laboratory, Weleda, that has since grown into a significant producer of medicines & health-care products.

In the following year, Rudolf Steiner asked Wegman to join the Executive Council of the newly reformed Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. She also directed the Medical Section of the research center at the Goetheanum. Together, Wegman & Steiner wrote what was to be Steiner’s last book, Extending Practical Medicine, which gave a theoretical basis to the new medicine they were developing. The book was partly written while Wegman cared for Steiner, who was already terminally ill. Wegman founded a new medical journal, Natura, the following year.

In 1936, the clinic opened a second home in Ascona, Switzerland. Shortly thereafter, difficulties between Wegman & the rest of the Executive Council flared up, & Wegman was asked to leave the Council; in addition, she & a number of supporters had their membership in the Anthroposophical Society itself withdrawn. The medical work flourished, however, & Wegman travelled extensively in support of the rapidly growing movement to extend medicine’s limits; she was especially active in the Netherlands & England during this time. Wegman died in Arlesheim in 1943, at the age of 67.

Ita Wegman is a close collaborator of Rudolf Steiner thruout many incarnations including: Alexander the Great to Steiner’s Aristotle; Gilgamesh & Ebani… On the Work of the Archangel Michael by Ita Wegman

1943 – Deathday of 1943 – Hans & Sophie Scholl, German activists. Sophie a German student along with her brother Hans were anti-Nazi political activists, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. They were convicted of high treason after distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich (LMU).

In the early summer of 1942, Scholl, his sister Sophie, Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Christoph Probst, & Alexander Schmorell, co-authored 6 anti-Nazi Third Reich political resistance leaflets. Calling themselves the White Rose, they instructed Germans to practice nonviolent resistance against the Nazis. The group had been horrified by the behavior of some German soldiers on the Eastern Front, where they had witnessed cruelty towards Jews in Poland & Russia.

Hans & Sophie Scholl & Christopher Probst were beheaded by Johann Reichhart in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison. The execution was supervised by Dr. Walter Roemer, the enforcement chief of the Munich district court. Scholl’s last words were “Es lebe die Freiheit!” (“Long live freedom!”). Shortly thereafter, most of the other students involved were arrested & executed as well.

1932 – Birthday of Ted Kennedy, an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts for over forty years from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died & is the fourth-longest-continuously-serving senator in United States history, having served there for almost 47 years.

For many years, Ted Kennedy was the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, & he was also the last surviving, longest-living, & youngest son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. & Rose Kennedy. He was the youngest brother of John F. Kennedy—the 35th President of the United States—& Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassination, & the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

1997 – In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly was successfully cloned.

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

Susan Balyar

~TODAY I AM –
An old gnarled tree near the shore,
Roots swallowing the sand & rock
Pecked by the high-tide & the wild wind…
A 1000 fledglings have nested in my boughs
& beneath, I give shelter to all…How do you see me?As firewood or freedom…?
~hag

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Prayer to our Angel by Rudolf Steiner

‘You my heavenly friend, my angel who has led me to the earth and who will lead me through the gate of death, into the spirit-home of the human soul; You who knows the paths since millennia, do not cease to enlighten me, to strengthen me, to advise me so that I will emerge from the weaving fire of destiny as a stronger destiny vessel and will learn to fill myself ever more with the meaning of divine world goals.’

Rudolf Steiner goes on to say:

‘This prayer is a direct invocation of the human soul to their angel. Every human being has an angel, an individual guiding being, who constantly accompanies the individual, and who gives this earthly human being, out of immediate perception of the total web of destiny, the right impulses and indications – IF this soul wishes to take them up. The angel accompanies this human soul intimately, its strivings, tasks, needs and fears. The angel grabs this soul with its entire being, at the same time grasping the spiritual world with its laws and possibilities. The angel helps and guides the human soul on its assigned paths.’

Sulamith Wulfing

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Denise Yocco

Friday February 23rd 2018 -Open Community Conversation 7 pm – 9 pm

This is a call to All: Especially those working out of the various Steiner initiatives – Folks from The Chicago Waldorf School, City Garden & The Urban Prairie Waldorf School, The Christian Community, Arcturus, the Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderberries, Angelic Organics, Zinniker’s Bio-Dynamic Farm…

Come be part of our ongoing conversation about the future of anthroposophy & its cultivation here in Chicago.

We will set the tone of the evening with The Calendar of the Soul Verse #47 Performed in Eurythmy by the Monday Eurythmy Group led by Mary Ruud

We will also continue to explore the biography of famous Chicagoans. At this meeting, Mary Ruud will share her research on Harold Washington.

And as always, the floor will be open for conversation.

All are welcome

“We come hereTo embrace what is common in each one of us –Our love for a higher knowledgeWhich unites us in understanding.Let this Light of Knowledge uniteEach and All of usMaking rise in eachThe raising of the Other”.
~Rudolf Steiner

Come face the Fates & meet the Sibyls in the Light of Anthroposophy, as we trace the evolution of human consciousness & ask: Does Fortune smile? Is Justice blind? How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

Through the insights of Rudolf Steiner, the power of Myth-Telling, & Ritual-Tasks, such as Socratic questioning; we will journey into our soul-depths to stand before the “Daughters of Necessity” that we will transform into “Freedom Fighters” to meet our true calling; asking: ‘What is my Highest Purpose?’